REVIEW number 320

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GMWATCH REVIEW number 320
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from Claire Robinson, REVIEW editor
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Dear all:

Another study shows that GM Roundup Ready crops are harming monarch butterflies in the US (GM FAILURES).

And an explosive new report from India shows that the data that industry submitted in favour of the commercialisation of GM brinjal (eggplant) seems to be incomplete, unscientific, if not down right fraudulent (ASIA) and that the regulators' conclusions of safety based on this data are baseless. Having looked at regulators' assessment of the industry dossier of studies at the basis of the current EU approval of glyphosate, the chemical in Roundup, I'd suggest that this is the norm, rather than the exception, in so-called regulatory "science".

Let's look at more of these regulatory assessments of industry dossiers and find out for sure.

Claire <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
Profiles: http://bit.ly/12UAI2
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch
Facebook: http://bit.ly/c6OnaX

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CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
ASIA
GM TREES
GM FAILURES
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
GM AND SHARIA LAW
EUROPE
CORPORATE CRIMES

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ PLANS TO REPLICATE SCIENCE MEDIA CENTRE IN U.S. FRAUGHT WITH DANGERS - NATURE JOURNAL
Plans are afoot to set up a US version of the Science Media Centre, a lobby group funded by the likes of Monsanto, AstraZeneca, BP, Coca-Cola, and Syngenta which masquerades as an independent source of scientific information for journalists. But the plans are unlikely to succeed, says Science writer Colin Macilwain in the journal Nature. Macilwain accurately characterises the SMC's approach to risk assessment as, "If you want to hear about the risks of nuclear power”¦ just ask your local nuclear engineer" - but thinks the US media are more independently-minded than their British counterparts. While we don't share Macilwain's optimism, we hope our American cousins will read up on the Science Media Centre and the history of its director, Fiona Fox, and her allies, by following the links here:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/13773
There's a useful bibliography of articles about the LM network, the pro-corporate clique of which Fox and the SMC are offshoots, here:
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/LM_network:_Bibliography

+ JIC SPINS ANOTHER VACUOUS GM "SUPERFOOD"
In 2008 media outlets around the world ran with the story of the GM purple tomato that could "beat cancer", as well as keep you slim, ward off diabetes and help safeguard your eyesight! All this because a team of researchers at the John Innes Centre, under Prof Cathie Martin, had genetically engineered anthocyanins into tomatoes.

Yet anthocyanins are commonly available in a long list of existing fruit and vegetables, their exact role, if any, in disease prevention is poorly understood, and non-GM purple tomatoes are also available. But why would any of that stop GM researchers claiming you needed GM to beat cancer?

Now, four years later, Cathie Martin and her team at the JIC are at it again. This time they have worked out how to genetically engineer the gene for anthocyanins in blood oranges into ordinary oranges, and then called a press conference. Once again this is generating headlines about beating heart disease, controlling diabetes and reducing obesity, although they seem to have skipped the curing cancer claims this time - presumably because it might just remind even the laziest of journalists that we have been here before!

Oh, and note that Cathie Martin's claim that you "can improve your cardiovascular risk factors" seems to be based on "one unpublished experiment" with non-GM blood orange juice. Now what is it that the GM attack dogs, including those at the JIC, say said about claims based on unpublished experiments? Yes, that's right: "Quit the grandstanding and show us the peer reviewed evidence."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13769

+ BIASED SURVEY CLAIMS UK PUBLIC ATTITUDE TO GM "SOFTENING"
An article in The Guardian headed, "Should the UK now embrace GM food?" claims, "A survey shows attitudes in the UK towards genetically modified food has softened slightly." But as Dr Tom MacMillan, director of innovation at the Soil Association pointed out, the survey doesn't show that public concern over GM food has lessened. The proportion of people saying they agree that GM food "should be encouraged" actually dropped from 46% in 2002 to 27% in 2012.

That's in spite of the fact that the survey, commissioned by the British Science Association, had astonishingly biased questions that, for example, hyped theoretical benefits of GM Golden Rice and aphid-resistant wheat, without pointing out the cheaper and already-available non-GM solutions to the problems that these GM crops claim to address.

Prof Brian Wynne agreed with MacMillan that the survey "has been heavily spun in order to reach the dodgy story-line about British public attitudes to GM supposedly softening." Wynne added, "I resigned from the steering group of the Food Standards Agency's 'GM public dialogue' in 2010, because after being reassured that it would broaden the frame to address sustainable long-term global food security as the key issue, in which GM is a small possible player, the dialogue was continually reduced only to the industry-government-science obsession, 'GM or not?'"
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13752
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13753

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ASIA
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+ INDIA: NEW REPORT DAMNS INDIA'S GM CROP REGULATION
An explosive new report by Prof Jack Heinemann on the safety assessment of Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) has been submitted to India's Minister of Environment and Forests. Its findings suggest the regulation and official expertise brought to bear on GM crops are either grossly incompetent... or worse.
 
Heinemann said: "Every [industry] experiment I personally reviewed seemed to have some significant flaw, or was only half finished, effectively leaving nothing to support the conclusions of safety. It had the semblance of authority, but lacked the substance."
http://gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/13774

Aruna Rodrigues, lead petitioner in a public interest lawsuit in India's Supreme Court to prevent the release of GM crops, said, "The implications of Heinemann's findings are so serious that they raise the charge that must be levied at the regulators and the [GM regulator] GEAC in particular, to a new and startling level; that of either rank incompetence or a conflict of interest so deep that there is a great desire to promote GM crops, and Monsanto in particular, at the expense of the public interest. Heinemann's analyses show that Monsanto's dossier is fundamentally flawed at its starting point, or to tell it straight, Monsanto's Bt brinjal dossier is fraudulent."

+ INDIA: RAJASTHAN BANS GM TRIALS
Rajasthan has imposed a moratorium on GM crop trials.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13775

+ INDIA: THE TRUTH BEHIND "FARMER" CAMPAIGNS IN FAVOUR OF GM CROPS
The farmer group Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) has alleged that Monsanto is secretly running a campaign in rural Gujarat, where it is asking farmers to sign a letter to Prime Minister favouring introduction of GM food crops. The apex body of farmers further alleged the US-based firm had hired local youth in villages who get farmers to sign the letter. It asked the Gujarat government to ban Monsanto for indulging in "anti-farmer" activities.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13771

+ INDIA: FARM LEADER DEMANDS BAN ON BT COTTON
President of farmer group VJAS Kishor Tiwari has demanded a total ban on Bt cotton to save lives of poor farmers in Vidarbha. Tiwari said the seed manufacturing and marketing companies had claimed high yields for Bt cotton through false propaganda, but the reality is that the agrarian crisis has worsened following the total failure of Bt cotton in the rain-fed region of Vidarbha.

He made the announcement in a crowded press conference on the eve of the Parliamentary Standing Committee's visit to the district to investigate the impact of Bt cotton on farmer suicides. It seems the committee returned "with largely negative feedback about the genetically modified Bt cotton seed from Vidarbha". This is in spite of pro-GM lobbying by Sharad Joshi, a so-called farmer leader who is actually a member of the advisory board of the Monsanto-backed World Agricultural Forum (WAF) in St Louis, USA.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13733
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13772

+ INDIA: UNEXPECTED NEW EPICENTRES FOR FARMER SUICIDES
In 2011 the highest number of farmer suicides in the state of Maharashtra was not in Vidarbha but, unexpectedly, in Marathwada. This region and Khandesh, where farmers suffered Bt cotton crop failure and massive debt, have emerged as the new epicentres for suicides in the state.  
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13735

+ SHUTTING DOWN DISSENT IN INDIA
India's prime minister has claimed that there is a "foreign hand" behind protests against nuclear energy and GM food. But an article in The Hindu says foreign hand lies in the agrotech and nuclear firms, not the NGOs, and it is they that are undermining the public interest. The article says, "The PM is trying to discredit and undermine the people and groups asking legitimate questions of a government that they have elected" - and thereby shut down dissent.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13729

+ PRIME MINISTER BLAMING NGOs FOR BT BRINJAL MORATORIUM CRITICISED
The Coalition for a GM-Free India has expressed "outrage" at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that foreign-funded NGOs were the reason for the moratorium on Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine). Sridhar Radhakrishnan, convenor of the coalition, said the issue was not one of NGOs or foreign funding; that was merely a ruse that the Prime Minister had seized upon to cover his and his government's unwillingness to listen to the people. The more troubling aspect of Singh's stand was that he seemed to have made up his mind on pushing GM and ignoring the genuine scientific concerns, with or without the consent of the people.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13732

+ OPEN LETTER TO INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER
Prominent Indian citizens are signing a strongly worded open letter to the Prime Minister pointing out that he got it badly wrong when he claimed that resistance against GMOs is just about NGOs or foreign support. The letter says, "What we see is a government saying that it will take its top-down decisions, however biased or unscientific”¦ In fact, we are very concerned about the powerful foreign hand pushing GM crops in our country."

A housewife in Chennai has gathered signatures on her own petition to the Prime Minister, which simply says, "Please do not underestimate the intelligence of common man in spite of the mistakes we make in electing such leaders!"
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13738

+ OPPOSITION MOUNTS TO INDIA'S BRAI BILL
In India, opposition to the BRAI bill, which would fast-track GM approvals, is mounting.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13732

+ WHERE IS THE SCEPTICAL INDIAN SCIENTIST ON GM FAILURES?
Indian scientists are impervious to the inconvenient facts on GM crops, says an excellent article for Down to Earth. Instead of investigating the growing problems of pest and weed resistance to GM crop pesticides, they dismiss them as the scaremongering of anti-GM activists - even when the warnings come from the US EPA.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13734

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GM TREES
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+ HELP STOP GM TREES
In the wake of the Round Table on Sustainable Soy greenwash  program, which certifies GM pesticide-soaked soy as "responsible", now the timber industry is moving to certify GM trees as "sustainable". STOP GE Trees Campaign says, "GE trees are not now and never will be 'sustainable'. They deplete soils and water, require huge inputs of toxic chemicals, replace native forests, displace biodiversity and forest dependent communities, kill beneficial insects, and worsen climate change. So in order to combat the sustainability lie, we are increasing our work to expose the social and ecological dangers of GE trees." News update and how you can help stop GM trees and support the STOP GE Trees Campaign:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13740

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GM FAILURES
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+ WHY MONSANTO THOUGHT WEEDS WOULD NEVER DEFEAT ROUNDUP
Why didn't Monsanto's scientists foresee that weeds would become resistant to glyphosate, the chemical in their Roundup herbicide? Er”¦ because their salaries depended on their not foreseeing it? National Public Radio (NPR) in the US asked several Monsanto scientists for their responses.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13761

By the way, glyphosate's current approval in Europe, dating from 2002, is based in part on Monsanto's assertion that resistance was "not wide spread" [sic.] and "unlikely to occur across a wide range of ”¦ species". While this assertion has been proven entirely wrong, we are still stuck with a pesticide that's been approved based on little better than wishful thinking and fairytales.
See report at http://earthopensource.org/reports/files/pdfs/Roundup-and-birth-defects/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5.pdf (p38)

+ GM ROUNDUP READY CROPS DESTROYING MONARCH BUTTERFLIES? STUDY
The rapid spread of herbicide-resistant crops has coincided with - and may explain - the dramatic decline in monarch butterfly numbers that has troubled some naturalists over the past decade, according to a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University. Between 1999 and 2010, the same period in which GM crops became the norm for farmers, the number of monarch eggs declined by 81% across the Midwest, the researchers say. That's because milkweed - the host plant for monarch eggs and caterpillars - has nearly disappeared from farm fields, they found. Commenting, John Pleasants from Iowa State University said it is one of the clearest examples yet of unintended consequences from the widespread use of GM seeds.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13777
New study here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-4598.2012.00196.x/abstract?
The latest study follows on from an earlier one:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1752-4598.2011.00142.x/abstract
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/science/12butterfly.html?_r=3&emc=eta1

+ INSECT EXPERTS ISSUE "URGENT" WARNING ON GM INSECTICIDAL SEEDS
A group of scientists has sent a letter to the US Environmental Protection Agency urging farmers to stop planting GM Bt rootworm-resistant corn because it will no longer protect them from the rootworm. The researchers are calling on farmers in some parts of the country to stop planting corn with anti-rootworm genes altogether, or to plant such corn only intermittently, in order to counter the development of pest resistance. Two other experts who were not part of the group that sent the letter have called for the EPA to mandate bigger refuges of Bt-free corn, to slow down emerging resistance. But Patrick Porter, from Texas A&M University, who coordinated drafting of the letter, says that's not possible, because there isn't enough non-Bt corn seed to go around. Welcome to the brave new GM world of increased farmer choice!
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13755

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THE AMERICAS
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+ RAMPANT GMO CONTAMINATION UNCHECKED BY JUDGE
Organic farmers sought a judgment against Monsanto to protect themselves from being sued for patent infringement when their crops are unintentionally contaminated with the company's GM seed. But the case was dismissed in federal district court in New York by Judge Naomi Buchwald, who called the plaintiffs' concern an "intangible worry, unanchored in time."

In fact, Monsanto has already filed "over a hundred lawsuits involving hundreds of farmers for illegally using GMO patented seeds, and there have been judgments as high as a million dollars, with the average judgment being about $170,000," according to Paige Tomaselli, staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a plaintiff in the case.

An article for PR Watch said, "That's a pretty tangible worry for farmers that don't intend to grow genetically engineered crops. The plaintiffs collectively represent over 300,000 farmers and eaters."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13751

+ GM LABELLING IS A NO-BRAINER - MARION NESTLE
Labelling GM foods should be a no-brainer, according to nutrition expert Marion Nestle, who says of the US, "Fifty countries have mandatory labelling. We're one of the only developed countries that doesn't. GMOs are labeled in China, Russia. Why would consumers in those countries have this information and we not have it here?"
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13736

+ 55 CONGRESS MEMBERS ASK FDA TO LABEL GM FOODS
A letter signed by 55 Members of Congress was sent to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calling on the agency to require the labelling of GM foods. "Consumers are being misled about the foods they are purchasing," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. "FDA's two-decade old decision is bad policy based on outdated science and must be revoked. The American consumer deserves the same fundamental freedoms and choices of other nations' citizens."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13768

+ U.S.: PROTESTERS ARRESTED OUTSIDE MONSANTO OFFICES
US police arrested 12 Occupy DC activists who assembled in front of the Washington, DC offices of Monsanto, in response to a federal judge's dismissal of a class-action lawsuit against the company.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13730

+ PARAGUAY GOVT PROBES LANDGRABBING FOR SOY EXPANSION
Paraguay president Fernando Lugo intends to investigate the possibility that 8 million hectares of land were illegally grabbed for GM soy expansion. The landowners who have inundated Paraguay with GM soy, many of them Brazilian, are resisting the review.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13731

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AFRICA
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+ UNLABELLED FOOD TESTS POSITIVE FOR GM
The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has found that several food products, including baby cereal, maize meal consumed as a staple, a renown and heavily promoted dietary supplement for active sports people and wheat free cereal, have tested positive for GM - yet are all, illegally, unlabelled. Food producers, importers and packagers are required by law to label GM foods where the GM proportion of an ingredient is at least 5%. Independent tests showed that Nestle's Infant cereal, Cerelac Honey, was contained 78% of GM maize DNA in relation to the total maize DNA - yet the product was not labelled GM. Other products were also found to have illegally failed to carry a GM label.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13770

+ SOUTH AFRICA'S "BIOTECH BOOM" A FLOP FOR FARMERS, CONSUMERS
On 9 March 2012 GM industry lobby group ISAAA proudly proclaimed another boom year for GM crops in South Africa and claimed that the benefit of GM crops is widespread and widely shared. But the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) vehemently disputes that GM crops have benefitted farmers and consumers in South Africa. ACB says GM crops have done nothing to bring about food security or curtail the escalating costs of food in South Africa. Between January 2008 and January 2012, the cost of a 5kg bag super maize meal increased by a staggering 83%. In 2007, the poorest 30% of the population spent approximately 22% of their monthly income on food, including on maize - a staple. The latest figures from January 2012 put this at nearly 39%. According to Mariam Mayet, Director of the ACB, "The beneficiaries of GM crops remain the multinational biotechnology companies themselves."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13765

+ GM COTTON TOUTED FOR WEST AFRICA
Is GM cotton in Burkina Faso the new "white gold"? Journalist Peter Dörrie looks at the evidence on both sides.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13776

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GM AND SHARIA LAW
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+ ARE GM FOODS COMPATIBLE WITH ISLAMIC SHARIA LAW?
Attorney Steven Druker of the Alliance for Biointegrity ponders whether GM foods are compatible with Islamic Sharia law and decides they are not. Druker concludes, "As a matter of religious principle, Muslims have strong grounds to reject all GE foods because, not only is their safety seriously in doubt, the arguments advanced in favour of their safety rest on dubious assumptions that, besides being at odds with science, conflict with the belief that the creation of life on earth, and the intricate development of its multitudinous forms, have been directed by a purposeful and all-powerful God."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13756

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EUROPE
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+ EX-MONSANTO EMPLOYEE SHORTLISTED FOR EFSA
The European Commission has recommended that one of Europe's chief food lobbyists who is also a former Monsanto employee sits on the management board of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The appointment of Mella Frewen, lobby chief at FoodDrinkEurope (previously known as the CIAA) will create a conflict of interest for the food agency's management board.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13750
Conflicts on the menu: 10 years of industry conflicts of interest at EFSA. New report from Corporate Europe Observatory and Earth Open Source:
http://www.corporateeurope.org/publications/conflicts-menu

+ MOVE TO CHANGE EU LEGISLATION ON GM CROPS FAILS
A proposal by the Danish Presidency proposing reform of the EU legislation on cultivating GM crops has been rejected by EU member states. The move claimed to permit Member States to ban GM crop cultivation in their territory, but the proposal was dangerously flawed and could not provide legally sound means for member states to take such action or protection for farmers who choose to avoid GM. Greenpeace welcomed the member states' rejection of the proposal.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13763
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13741

+ MASSIVE CUTS IN PESTICIDES WITHOUT GMOs
While GMOs have largely - and sometimes spectacularly - failed to cut agrochemical use or improve yields, a new study has found that France can achieve a 30% reduction in pesticide use on arable crops without impacting on either yields or farm income. The modelling study was carried out by scientists at the country's agriculture department, INRA.

Kavitha Kuruganti commented that while the French study talks about the possibility of a 30% pesticide reduction, in India, the world's largest state-supported ecological farming project has eliminated the use of pesticides completely. And yields and net returns to farmers have increased too.

As one of the officials who pioneered this programme said, "Who wants to hear from experts and others on whether they think it is possible or not, when one parameter for assessing such possibilities is simply the smiles on the faces of the farmers who are taking part in the programme?"

Kavitha added, "I appreciate that the context for the study in France was to allay farmers' fears but also wanted to draw the attention of people to the fact  that real changes, and on a large scale, are already underway."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13737

+ NEW CAMPAIGN SAYS NO TO GM WHEAT
GM Freeze has launched a new campaign called "GM Wheat? No Thanks!" to protest the Government’s approval of an open-air field trial of GM wheat at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire. The campaign calls on individuals, farmers and food businesses to pledge not to use or buy GM wheat, and demands that research money to be directed to more sustainable food production methods. The crop could be planted any day.
Sign the pledge: "'NO' to GM Wheat": http://www.gmfreeze.org/actions/24/
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13728

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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ WWF BEDS WITH MONSANTO TO STEAL PUBLIC LANDS, PROMOTE GM CROPS
Good article about how WWF joined forces with GM agribusiness to reapportion the planet for energy production and GM food:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13764